Laura Muir wins Olympic silver: How she came of age on the greatest stage of all

Laura Muir clasped her silver shiny souvenir and you truly wondered if she would ever let it go. Less than four minutes is all it took to earn an Olympic medal last night in Tokyo when she accelerated and endured and ran as she has never done before. To collapse at the finish, under the light of the moon but feeling every possible emotion under the sun.

Laura Muir reacts after winning the silver medal in the Women's 1500 metres final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

She has wept with disappointment before, more than once. This time, tears flowed with a concoction of joy and relief. Second and superbly so in the women’s 1500 metres final. The 28-year-old, right where she’d dared to hope to be, a treasure she can hold onto, a memory never to be erased from her bank.

“I was just so scared that I was going to get pipped in fourth,” she said. “And I thought, 'run as hard as you can … if I don't run another step again, just make sure I get to that line as fast as possible.' I was tying up badly. But luckily I made it, and in a fast time too.”

Historically quick. Her own British record lowered to 3 minutes and 54.50 seconds, busting the mark she established in Paris in the August of 2016 when the deflation of fading from third to seventh in the last lap of the Rio Olympic final still oozed from her pores.

Gold medallist Faith Kipyegon of Kenya with silver medallist, Laura Muir. (Photo by Dylan Martinez - Pool / Getty Images)

One protagonist from Brazil loomed in her sights once again when the charge was electrified with 300m remaining as three lionesses separated themselves from the pack. Faith Kipyegon, one of the many mothers who have come to Japan and underlined that pregnancy need only demand a pause, stole enough of a march that momentum shifted irrevocably toward the 2016 gold medallist.

Also in Muir’s stead lurked Sifan Hassan, world champion and already with 5,000m gold from these Games, who has regularly tortured the Scot with ferocious kicks that have walloped her in the gut.

Yet from one Olympic final to the next, the trained vet has performed a cosmetic surgery upon her skillset, graft after graft – overseen by her masterful coach Andy Young - so that a beast of rare beauty might be unleashed in moments like these. Her mentor, she acknowledged, “has sacrificed the last ten years for that four-minute performance.”

And although she conceded that Kipyegon, now among the greats of the metric mile, could no longer be caught, Hassan might assuredly be passed. “Just when we had about 200 metres to go, I saw that she started rocking a wee bit,” Muir confirmed.

“I saw that gap open and I thought I need to close this gap now if I am going to keep silver.” Eviscerated with one venomous strike off the final bend, this time the Dutchwoman was simply no match at all.

Eyes only on the prize, Muir did not even pause to look up at the stadium screen to see what margin she had built over Hassan and the others, far adrift. “I had no idea. I didn't know what the gap was between me and Sifan. I wasn't leaving anything to chance. I just ran as hard as I could. I didn't think a medal, let alone silver, was guaranteed until I crossed that line.”

Kipyegon was golden again in an Olympic record of 3:53.11 and Hassan’s evident fatigue in cementing bronze backed up Muir and Young’s call to withdraw the Scot from the 800m and throw everything into completing this fantastical transformation. From Kinross-shire onto cross-country circuits up and down the land, she was once so shy and lacking in true self-belief that she anticipated her vet career would come to the fore and running be relegated to a mere sideline. Even European titles still left questions. Could she convert on the world stage? Were the succession of near-misses a signal of a ceiling rather than a trap door through which she could still ascend?

“I have been fourth, fifth twice, sixth and seventh at a global championship every year since 2015,” she reminded us. Her voice quivered. “I've worked so hard. For so long.”

The medal she clutched will forever attest to that labour. It will soon, surely, be stashed on a shelf. If this journey has taught her anything, it is that running is simply blissful but there are enticements to follow trails still unexplored.

“I just need to win a Commonwealth medal and a world medal,” she said. “It's great we have that opportunity next year. As many medals as possible would be great. But if I finish my career tomorrow, I know I'm an Olympic silver medallist, which is fantastic.”

Earlier, Andy Butchart, pictured left, was 11th in the men’s 5000m final in a season’s best of 13:09.97 as Uganda’s world record holder Joshua Cheptegei took gold in 12:58.15. But on the concluding evening of track action, Muir’s contemporaries will strike out to follow her lead.

Eilish McColgan will line up in the 10,000m final, nearly 30 years to the month since her mother Liz became world champion over the same distance in Tokyo. Inheriting her British record, currently at 30:57.07, is the Dundonian’s declared goal. “And if I can achieve that in the same stadium that she captured her world title, amazing.”

Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr, club-mates since their youth at Edinburgh AC, have bullish ambitions in the men’s 1500m final. “I’ve got European and Commonwealth medals, so this is the next step isn’t it?” said Wightman. “I can't go into the race being like 'top three would be amazing.’ Because it just wouldn't be,” added Kerr. “The reason I'm here is to win. And that's the be all, end all for me.”